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My Dear the Superior Brical HR, mod in this Country declare to me that
Appendix 4.
FINANCIAL STATEMENT, 1868,
By His Excellency SIR RICHARD GRAVES MACDONNELL, C.B.,
555
1. Last August, when explaining the Estimates for 1868, which I then laid before you, I was obliged to draw your attention to the many temporary and uncertain elements then involved in the calculations affecting the Revenue side of the account. In that respect I have the satisfaction of thinking that the Revenue estimated for 1869 is one unlikely to be deranged by similar disturbing influences, and that, as ought always to be the case in framing Estimates, there is a greater probability of an excess than a deficiency in the amount of Revenue estimated.
2. At page 3 of the Detailed Estimates, which I now lay before you, the Excess of the Colony's Assets over its Liabilities on the first day of the present year is put down as $25,851, and having gone into the calculations, I think there is little apparent room for error in that item. I may also remark that the surplus intended is such as would have remained on the first of last January after payment of all known Liabilities, including arrears due for the Military Contribution. The latter however, can no longer be counted as part of the Colony's Liabilities because all sums due on that account, even to the 30th September of this year, have been already discharged.
3. On the other hand, amongst your Assets are necessarily included sums which are practically unavailable such as a large portion of the subsidiary coins, which cannot be refused at the Treasury and which, therefore, keep steadily increasing, as the accompanying Return explains. From that Return you will perceive that on the first day of this month, the Colony possessed no less than $43,482 in Copper and Bronze coinage, the greater part of which may be regarded as being at present entirely useless and as an amount which increases almost every week. Occasionally, it is decreased by arrangements with Contractors for Public Works to take a portion of their money in Copper, or by a rise in the value of the latter coinage which was lately at par, but it is sure to find its way back to the Treasury whenever it falls below par in the markets of Canton or Hongkong.
4. It is essential also to bear in mind that the Bronze, or mil coinage, amounts to $17,000, of which there is apparently no prospect of getting rid on any terms. This result is the more unfortunate, because those coins have cost a considerable extra outlay, from having been coined in England instead of at the Mint of the Colony, whilst the heavy expense attending their manufacture abroad and freight, etc., etc. from a distant country has been proportionably augmented.
5. The available Assets of the Colony must therefore be diminished by those sums, whilst it must also be remembered that out of what might remain if a Creditor and Debtor account were to be now balanced, a considerable portion would consist of arrears of Rents and Taxes, which require time to collect, and part of which it is certain could not be recovered.
6. Thus although in my Financial Statement of August last year, the Colony's Assets, on the 1st January, 1867, were stated to amount to about $24,000, yet small as that sum was, it would have been a delusion to expect to realise it in any shape.